The Lovely Bones: KRR Edition!
by Aquaqua
Summary: My name is Natsumi. Like the season. Surname: Hinata-Moore. I was 17 years old when I was murdered, on December 6, 2008. This is my story, and the story of my family and friends after my death, and their fight to bring justice.
1. Chapter 1

I remember being really small.

Too small to see over the edge of a table.

There was a snow globe.

And I remember the penguin that lived inside the globe.

He was all alone in there, and I worried for him.

"Don't worry, Kiddo. He's got a nice life," my father, the late Haru Hinata, said. "He's trapped in a perfect world." He shook the snow globe and showed me. "See that, Natchi?"

I remember being given a camera for my 17th birthday, by my stepfather. He was from America. I loved the way a photo could capture a photo before it was gone. That's what I wanted to be when I grew up. A wildlife photographer. I imagined when I was older, I'd be tracking wild elephants and rhinos. But for now, I had to make do with Laurie. She was my 7 year old stepsister, by the way. Lauren Elena Hinata-Moore.

I remember going with Malcolm, my stepfather, and my friend, Koyuki, to the sinkhole at Yamamoto's farm. There was something about the way the earth could swallow things whole.

And I remember the girl who lived there. Anana Yamamoto. I had been suspicious about her name at first, thinking she was a stupid frog, but she didn't seem to be, and she seemed pretty peaceful as well. The kids at our school said she was weird, and now I know she was different. She saw things others couldn't. She was different in other ways, as well.

And I remember the worst thing that ever happened to us as a family. The day my little sister stopped breathing.

"Somebody help! Mama? Where are you? Mama?"

I looked outside. A group of kids were surrounded around Laurie's body.

"Malcolm? Fuyuki?" I called. No one answered. Not even the platoon.

I ran to the crowd, and said, "Laurie! What happened?"

"She swallowed a twig!" Laurie's best friend, Tetsu Kobayashi wailed. I looked at my stepsister. Her eyes were closed, her body motionless. Her lips and fingers were turning blue.

I ran around until I found Malcolm's car. I quickly snapped the seatbelt, and sped off with Laurie in the backseat. It was stupid, mostly because I hadn't bothered getting my license yet. I drove, with tears in my eyes as my ears filled with squeals of the tires, "Watch out!"s and "Are you crazy?"s from other cars.

I handed the little girl to a paramedic at the hospital, and he quickly put her on a stretcher and on oxygen.

"What's her name?" the medic asked.

"Moore Lauren!"

He nodded, and whisked her away.

I sat in the hospital room, whispering, "Laurie, you're okay. You're okay."

And I remember the light in my family's eyes. The platoon's as well. The platoon had become Laurie's best friends, next to Tetsu.

We weren't those people. Those unlucky people, to whom bad things happened for no reason.

"You know, the Buddhists say, 'If you save someone else's life…"

Oba-chan predicted I would live a long and happy life, because I'd saved my sister.

Akina Hinata was wrong.

My name is Natsumi, like the season. Surname, Hinata-Moore.

I was 17 years old when I was murdured, on December 6, 2008.


	2. Chapter 2

(A/N: There's going to be a few people speaking English, so if it's in English, it's in bold)

Our story begins a day before my murder.

It was on a day much like any other. It was a few weeks until my 18th birthday. I couldn't wait. My friends, Koyuki, Momoka, and Mois were scanning the mall for the heck of it, like every teenager does.

Malcolm and Mama came, too, but like good parents, they had the sense to stay on the opposite side of the store at all times. I smiled as I heard Laurie's high-pitched voice.

**"Daddy! Daddy! Look! Look!"**

I looked outside the bookstore window, and I saw the boy I had an absolute HUGE crush on: Saburo-senpai!

"Does he like you as much as you like him?" Mama said. I jumped. She snuck up on me.

"Mama, he's in college now. He doesn't even know I exist?"

"He looks cute."

"Mama, could you drop it?" He looked at me, and I ducked behind a shelf.

She continued watching him. "You're safe now. He's in the music store."

I wasn't safe. A man in my neighborhood was watching me.

If I hadn't been so distracted, I would have realized something was wrong. Because that sort of thing gives me the skeevies...

But I was too busy, thinking about the length of Saburo-senpai's eyelashes. When we still went to the same school, I counted each one in library time while he was reading Romeo and Juliet. The most seriously tragic love story ever.

Come lunchtime, everyone left except mama and me.

"So, have you kissed him yet?"

She saw my bewildered expression, and said, "Why not? You like him; he likes you, what's the hold up?"

I looked down, blushing as red as a tomato. "I'm just afraid I won't be any good at it."

"My first kiss was with a boy in my class, Saito Wataru. You won't tell your stepfather on me, will you?" she asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Of course not. What was it like?"

"The kiss? Oh it was wonderful. Beautiful, glorious. Took me a long time before I realized that a kiss like that, it only happen just once."

She looked at her watch. "Oh, Natsumi, it's time to go!"

It wasn't Shimizu-sama, by the way. Although, he does look kinda suspicious. Shimizu-sama never hurt anyone. Shimizu-sama's own daughter died a year and a half after I did. She had leukemia, but I never saw her in my heaven.

My murderer was a man from our neighborhood.

I took his photo once as he talked to Mama and Malcolm about his border flowers. I was aiming for the bushes, when he got in the way. He stepped out of nowhere, and ruined the shot. He ruined a lot of things.

**"Suzume Fujita has a crush on you."** It was later that day, and Malcolm was making a boat-in-a-bottle. Malcolm was teaching me English, and I was teaching him Japanese, so we had whole conversations, me talking English, and him talking Japanese. It felt so strange to put the surname AFTER the given name!

"Really? Which one is Fujita-sama?" Malcolm asked.

**"You know, blond hair, mega blue eye shadow...She works at the bookstore."**

"The tall one?

**"She's not tall, she wears platforms. She doesn't know you're Mama's editor."**

Malcolm gave a sly smile. "Oh, so I take that as a negative."

**"Or that you're a closet scale-modeler."** I was referring to the huge box of stuff Malcolm had with him when they moved here.

**"Did Mama know before she married you? About your obsession?"**

"Natsumi, hobbies are healthy. They teach you things." As he said this, he put his tweezers into the bottle, and gently slid the crumpled-up ship into the bottle.

**"Like what?"**

"Like if you start something, you finish it. You don't stop until you get it right. If you don't get it right, start over and keep on as long as you've got to. That's the way it is."

**"That's something Giroro would say."**

"Giroro-gocho? The red one with the scar, right?"

**"Exactly."**

"My father taught me to do this. And now I'm teaching you. Soon after, I'll teach Fuyuki, and Laurie."

**"We're creating something for us. Something special."**

"Yes. You're my first-mate, Summer. One day, all of this will be yours." He gestured to the 20+ miniature ships in bottles on the shelf.

Suddenly, Mama's voice came up. "Malcolm! Natsumi! Dinner!"

Malcolm called up, "One minute!"

He handed a string to me. "Okay, Summer. One, two, three!"

I pulled the string, and our ship-in-a-bottle rose for all to see.

**"Now that is a thing of beauty..."** Malcolm was so surprised that I didn't destroy it this time that he forgot to speak in Japanese.

"Guys! Supper's going to get cold!

We both got up, and I said, "Coming, Mama!"

If I knew what was going to happen the next day, I'd savor every bite.

But I didn't.

No one did.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, I had school as usual. I usually loved school, but I was tired for some reason.

I could hear a teacher talking to Anana. "You! Why'd you draw breasts on this picture!"

"I wanted to make it original! Got it?"

"We didn't say you could do that! Breasts are not on the figurine!"

"You told us to put eyes on it, and it doesn't have eyes either!"

I fingered a scrap of paper in my pocket that Giroro had given me. I was going to open it after school.

I quickly walked out of school, and walked down the street. But, then Giroro's note blew out of my pocket. I ran after it, until I lost it.

"Whoa! Hope that wasn't your homework!" a man said. I knew him. Suzuki-sama. "Hey, can I borrow you for a sec?"

"For what?"

"I'm building a playhouse for some of the neighborhood kids. Could you test it out for me?"

"um...sure..."

I followed him to a wooden house. I have to say, I was impressed. It was so cute, and big. The kids would love it.

I went into it, and he followed me in. I sat down in one of the chairs, and Suzuki-sama stood next to me. He really thought of everything. There were half-burned candles, tiny toys.

But, what I couldn't shake off was how he kept staring at me. Kind of hungrily. I quickly got up. "I-I've gotta go."

He pushed me back into the chair. "I can't let you go, miss."

Then, he tried to tear my shirt off. I screamed, and kicked him away. He swiped at me with a knife, and I barely missed. I sprinted out of the house, and I ran into the night. How it became night that quickly, I have no idea. I accidentally brushed against Anana Yamamoto as I ran. She whipped around, and saw me. I continued running, until I saw Malcolm. He was holding up a sign with my picture on it. "Have you seen my stepdaughter?" he asked.

I ran up to him, screaming, "MALCOLM!" He didn't see.

Suddenly, I was somewhere else. I was in a white bathroom. Or, it WOULD have been white, but there was red stained everywhere, and the room reeked with the metallic scent of blood.

Suzuki-sama was in the bathtub, bathing. I looked away out of politeness, and looked around the room, and I gasped that the knife he missed me with was bloody. I gasped when I realized my clothes were in the bottom of the floor.

I think that was when I started to scream.


	4. Chapter 4

I wasn't there at that moment. I was flying, falling away from the world I knew and loved so much.

I woke up in a gazebo. I looked up at the white wood, far above my head. There was a note next to me. I almost forgot about it. It was Giroro's note, the one I lost shortly before I was killed.

I opened it, and began to read.

_Natsumi,_

I know that you are in love with that Saburo boy, and I don't care if you disregard my message, but I just wanted to get this off my chest, so here goes:

I love you.

I always have, ever since we met. Ever since I realized how strong you were, how you wouldn't give up on saving this planet, how determined you were.

Giroro

I dropped the note, and stared into space. Giroro loved me? Since I slugged him with the suitcase all those years ago? He never told me. Knowing that I couldn't thank him for the courage to tell me this made me cry even harder.

I gently took one of the supports of the gazebo, and held onto it. Suddenly, I was in a different place.

The platoon was in the meeting room. They halfheartedly went over certain invasion schemes. Each and every one I knew would fail miserably. In fact, the more that I saw, it seemed that they were trying NOT to find working invasion plans.

Suddenly, there was a small knock on the door. Keroro gently looked up, and said, sighing, "Come in."

In came a Pekoponian girl. Anana Yamamoto. I knew that if I were still alive, they would be screaming, begging her not to turn them in. But, since I was gone, it seemed like they didn't even care.

"I am from Planet Keron, Staff Sergeant Anana. I was sent here many years ago to watch your progress. I just want to say that I am very, very sorry for your loss."

Heh. SO I was right. She WAS a stupid frog. I wished I was there to meet her in person, instead of watching this sad little scene.

Anana turned to the platoon, and said, "You know, when I was young, my mama used to say that when we died, we were sleeping, or we left where we were for someone else."

"She's gone," GIroro spoke up. I couldn't believe this was the Giroro I came to know. His shoulders shook with tears, tears trickled down his cheeks, and his voice shook.

Anana looked at Giroro, her eyes tearing up as well. "What if she isn't?"

Ghost-chan came up, then, and said, "I sense that there's a fellow spirit among us."

That sent the platoon looking. Eyes gazed across the room, hoping for a sound, or a sign from me. Only Anana got their wish. Her eyes fell on me, and they widened. "She's there! I can see her!"

Suddenly, I was being pulled back from my vision. The first thing I remembered hearing afterwards was, "You're not allowed to do that." It was a girl's voice, about seven or eight years old. I turned around, and I realized that this girl was a Keronian. She was purple, with a halo as a symbol. I recognized her as Giroro's late sister, but I forgot her name.

"You let her see you," the girl said. She glared at me. "You TOUCHED her! That's not allowed! You're not supposed to look back! You're supposed to keep moving forward! Come on!"

I followed close behind her, which was hard, because, even if she was a Keronian, she could walk fast. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ginny!"

"That doesn't sound like a Keronian name."

"I borrowed it! You can do stuff like that here!" And then, she was silent, as if that all cleared it up.

"You said to keep moving forward," I said. "Where are we? Heaven?"

"Not yet. We're in In-Between. I think that you people in the Land of the Living call it Limbo."

"Where are we going?"

"Where you thought we were in the first place," Ginny said to me. "Heaven! I can't wait to get there! You know, that I've been trying to get there the past ten years! If you've been especially good, you can work to get into Heaven by escorting someone special to you into there. That was how my friend, Myajaja got there! She escorted me!"

Ginny explained that Heaven was a land of no suffering, no pain, no sorrow, no memories. Happiness, love, joy, caring, beauty. That's all there was in Heaven.

I looked at the gazebo for a moment, and asked Ginny, "You said that Heaven is a land of no memory."

"Yes. Well, no bad memories. Once I get there, I'll forget about Mama and Papa beating me to death, but I'll remember my big brothers! I loved them so!"

"But you can't go back and see them?" I asked.

"No one can contact you once you go to Heaven, but that's as it should be. You can still watch your family, friends and their descendents grow, live their lives, but you cannot communicate with them. It will be like looking at a television screen. So, are you coming with me to Heaven, or not?"

I looked at the gazebo for a moment, and then I remembered Giroro's letter, saying that he loved me. I couldn't let a letter that strong go without an answer. I turned to Ginny, and said, "No."


	5. Chapter 5

"No?" Ginny asked. "Why did you say no?"

"It's not that I don't want to go to Heaven ever, Ginny," I said, "but it's just that I was very close to your brother, and I never got to tell him goodbye. I'm sure you didn't."

"Well, no," Ginny admitted. "But that's not an excuse! We're supposed to go to Heaven the minute we realize we're dead! That's the rule!"

I turned, and I said to her, my eyes angry, "Didn't anyone ever tell you that rules were made to be broken?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. But, I wanna go to Heaven, but I can't go without you!"

I knelt to her level, and I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Again, I want to go to Heaven, too, but I want to say goodbye to everyone first."

Ginny sighed. "Fine. I'll stay. Under one condition."

"What?"

"That if you ever get to see my brother again, I wanna see him, too. I wanna talk to him again!"

I smiled, and laughed. "I think that can be arranged. But, while we wait, why don't you show me around here?"

Ginny gave a loud laugh. "Sure!"

Ginny explained how Heaven was no single place. But it wasn't spead out far. It had things that we wouldn't think of in our wildest dreams. I could hear the flowers laughing, the trees whistling. The grass had no dead part, and I wouldn't have known this wasn't Heaven if Ginny hadn't told me.

Over the next few days, Ginny and I played together. Even though I had never gotten to turn eighteen, I realized that being an adult was overrated! I ran after Ginny, both of us wearing capes that reminded us of butterflies' wings, with the same animals flapping around us. We had snowball fights, and we played in autumn leaves, all on the same day. Heck, we even pretended to be movie stars walking down the catwalk.

Once in a while, I looked down at my family. I watched as Mama started drinking, and Malcolm working so hard that his eyes turned red every night. Laurie and Fuyuki struggled through schoolwork. The platoon wouldn't even try invading anymore. I wanted to run to them, hug them, kiss them, tell them everything was okay.

But of course I couldn't. I was dead.


	6. Chapter 6

Just because I was _almost_ in Heaven didn't mean that I was free of problems. My killer was still haunting me. It was very subtle. I would be playing with Ginny, and I would see a man's shape in the corner of my eye. I would turn, but nothing was there.

Eventually, it grew and grew, to there being a person when I turned. But, I tried to ignore it. It still freaked me out, though.

And when I slept, there was a house. I wanted to go into the house, I knew I did. But, I knew that when I walked inside, I would never come out, somehow.

I was on the gazebo, waiting, watching Malcolm look for clues. I feel sorry for the poor detective he pestered, calling every other day, with five or six people to look at. He grew so desperate, that he was looking through tax records to find people, claiming, "You can tell a lot about a person by their taxes."

My eyes widened when I saw that he was visiting Suzuki-sama, with Fuyuki. Malcolm and Fuyuki helped Suzuki-sama with a project, with weaving branches into a small dome, just big enough to hold two large men.

And I noticed that all the while, Suzuki-sama never took his eyes off of Fuyuki.

Oh, dear God, no...


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:**

**Hey, guys; it's Aquaqua! Sorry I haven't updated in so long, but I'm going to get to that now.**

**I've lost interest in Keroro. It's not that I don't ****_like _****it (I still thoroughly enjoy it) but I've found new obsessions. I don't want to continue a story that I'm going to have to force myself to do. Sorry.**

**Anyway, don't expect any new updates from me. But, if anyone wants to continue my story, use my characters, or whatever, you have full permission to. Do whatever you want to. Go nuts. :)**

**Sincerely,**

**Aquaqua**


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